


G.H.O.U.L Uncovered Files

by chuekito



Series: <html> [1]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Gen, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-06-09 08:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6897382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuekito/pseuds/chuekito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deleted and extra scenes from html.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Time to go Fuck Something Up

Touka could feel her heart racing and she bounced in time to the beat. The sewers around Headquarters were the perfect place for organized fights, so she’d organized a fight. This whole Rize business had worked her up more than she cared to admit, so instead of talking to someone, she’d decided to sort her feelings out by beating the shit out of someone else.  She’d walked in, nodded to the ghoul who ran the cavern, and he’d pointed to the kid she’d be fighting. Her opponent was across the cavern, some snot-nosed brat with a skull covering his face. How original. She knew it had to be Uta’s work, it was far too perfect to be anyone else’s, but the kid must’ve whined until Uta gave into the cliché. She adjusted her own mask, and ducked as a body went flying past. Well, that round was over. She was next.

 _Gonna kick this scrawny bastard’s ass,_ she thought, trying to hype herself up as she stepped forwards when she was called. Cheers erupted, Touka was well known for putting on a good show and having a hot temper.  Sure she’d had her ass handed to her a few times, and had had her fair share of scrapes and bruises, but for the most part, Touka liked to think that she had done fairly well for herself when she fought. The kid walked up as well, and received a respectable greeting that Touka paid no attention to. She’d manage to win against this rookie or she’d write up her recycling documents herself. The ghoul who ran the fights told the crowd to place their bets, stepped back, and the fight was on.

The kid launched himself at her without a moment’s thought, without taking the time to analyse her stance for weaknesses of any kind. A smart enough move, he probably didn't have the experience to find such chinks in her armor. Touka dodged easily, swinging back around and kicking him in the back just hard enough to make him stumble. He wheeled to face her quickly, coming in with a right hook, just in time to catch Touka's punch to his stomach. Touka blocked his hit with her forearm and fired off three strikes to his collarbone. It snapped with a satisfying "crack" on the third one, and the kid let out a pained cry as he pulled away. The match devolved into Touka lazily dodging or blocking the kid’s weak attacks, which were almost textbook. She could see every single one of them coming at least a mile away. She suspected that he hadn’t even finished training yet (Internally she sneered slightly. She’d finished when she was thirteen, and he had to be at least sixteen). Eventually, Touka could tell that he was getting pissed off. Good, she was tired of hopping around like a stupid human boxer, fists raised defensively, constantly focusing on her footwork. Touka was lagging a bit, holding back, staying away from him rather than engaging. It was a little tiring, but she wanted to wait until he brought out his kagune to really start the fight. She had to provide a good spectacle, after all, and it would be easier to win when they'd resorted to ghoul methods. No one ever settled anything with fists alone in the sewers. 

With a yell, the kid released a dark orange-tinted rinkaku, and sent it straight towards Touka. He was sluggish, and she laughed slightly, and lept up, over the writhing limbs, and let her own kagune tear from her shoulder. Finally, he'd taken the bait and the competition could begin for real.

 _Now this is going somewhere_ , she thought as she threw down hardened RC cells that glittered like stained glass. They caught the kid in the shoulder and his abdomen, and he screamed. Touka knew she hadn’t hit him hard enough to really leave permanent damage, so when she landed she made sure to roll close enough to kick her legs out and knock the kid over. No hard feelings, right? Hitting them while they were down wasn't honorable, but the onlookers didn't really give a shit. She sprung back up, waiting for the referee to call the match, but the kid was already on his hands and knees, lifting up his mask to spit out a glob of blood, and shakily getting to his feet, pulling out the shards as he did so. 

“Idiot,” Touka hissed. _If you take those out you’ll bleed more._

Nevertheless, he continued,

 _Determination is admirable or whatever, but you've just sealed your loss. Dumbass,_ Touka said haughtily to herself as he split his kagune into two parts and used them to pincer Touka into jumping again, where he used his kagune again to fling her halfway across the cavern. Touka landed on her feet, somersaulting to avoid royally fucking up her knees. She was tired, breathing heavily. Everyone in the room knew that she had to finish the fight fast, or she’d lose. Time to bring it up a notch and use her ukaku skill set. Touka sprinted back to where the kid was standing, clutching his side, sending more shards in front of her. While the kid was busy blocking them, she crashed into him, throwing punch after punch after punch to his face. The kid staggered back, cursing, and Touka sent a well-placed kick right to his head. He fell as if in slow motion, arching backwards gracefully and landing like a ton of bricks, knocked out cold. Touka let her kagune dissipate with a shaky huff, and gave her sweaty shirt a tug to keep it from clinging to her equally sweaty back. Damn, this was hard work. 

Her frustration mostly spent was reward enough, but she took the offered money thankfully as well. She nodded to the ghoul running the place, and headed back to her quarters to take a well-deserved shower and get some rest. At least this time shitty Nishiki wouldn't receive her misdirected anger, but that kid would be hurting for days. Touka always felt slightly better and slightly worse coming back from a fight, gone was her anger, but in its place came guilt. She managed to scrub away her worry in the shower, and slipped into a dreamless sleep.


	2. Strange, Strange, Strange

One way or another, the maskmaker’s workshop had avoided the same beige paint job as the rest of the facility, and instead was a mess of checkerboard tile, piles of cloth, leather, plastic, wood, scissors, tape measurers, knives, a variety of scary-looking tools, and dramatically lit masks. Paint splattered several surfaces, and an array of different colors were displayed on the wall (which had hastily been smeared with an almost hypnotizing blood red) as if the creator was still deliberating over his choices. The entire place reeked of _newness_ , freshly cut wood, drywall, and of course, the overwhelming smell of paint.

Kaneki followed Touka in while Nishiki and Hinami waited outside, claiming that the maskmaker “freaked them out”. He scuffed the tip of his shoe against the tile, and looked around curiously, noticing a series of pedestals staged around the edges of the room, several of them covered in some sort of tarp. Wandering over to one of them slowly, Kaneki made to lift the cover off of whatever was under the sheet to take a look, but before he could even grab the edge, Touka stopped him from across the room.

“Don’t touch anything, shitty Kaneki,” She hissed, her back to him, “You never know what Uta’s got stashed away.” Kaneki spun around and came almost nose to nose with a thin, pale (but heavily tattooed) man who stared at him blankly with creepy black and red eyes. Letting out a yell and flailing backwards, Kaneki bumped into the pedestal -the thankfully bolted down pedestal- as the man simply straightened up and continued holding his gaze.

 _What the hell?_ Kaneki thought, _Why are his eyes like that? Is he trying to freak me out?_ Touka turned her head slightly before walking over with her arms crossed.  

“Hello,” The man said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you, you just smelled so interesting. I’m Uta, the maskmaker.” Kaneki gaped at him, throwing a confused look at Touka who sighed, 

“Don’t be rude, Kaneki. At least say hello back or something instead of making that stupid fish face.” Snapping his mouth closed, Kaneki swallowed and managed to give a weak greeting in return. 

“It’s good to see you Touka, how’s work?” Uta asked in a kindly tone that threw Kaneki off. 

“Fine. What the hell is going on in here?” She gestured to the mess that surrounded them. “Usually it’s super nice, what happened?” He shrugged.

“Renovations. You know how it is,” Moving over to a chair, Uta motioned for Kaneki to follow him, which he did after a (rather rough) nudge from Touka. Warily, he sat down, hands curled tightly into fists right above his knees. He thought Uta could probably smell his discomfort, he didn’t need Kaneki’s rigid and obvious body language to give him any hints. Uta picked up a tape measurer and a notebook, and rummaged around behind some sort of counter before pulling out what looked like … a jar of eyes. Kaneki’s spine stiffened (which he hadn’t thought was possible) and he felt his upper lip curl in disgust. He thought he was going to be sick, but he shoved the feeling down and instead decided to stare intently at the masks while Uta fished out an eye and popped it in his mouth. He offered Touka one, and she declined as if it was a totally normal thing to say, and then he asked Kaneki if he wanted one. Kaneki shook his head ‘no’ so hard, he thought it would fly off his neck. 

Uta moved on, ignoring Kaneki’s very over the top rejection and began to measure Kaneki’s head and face, writing down on his paper and asking questions as he did so. Allergies, preferences, about his eyepatch, and then about personal information.

“So Kaneki,” he began after writing down something about ‘right eye’. “I’m sure a nice symmetrical face like yours is quite popular with the ladies. Do you go on a lot of dates?” Kaneki swallowed, remembering Rize.

“No, not really,” He answered, deciding to keep it simple and trying to avoid the topic. He didn’t know how many ghouls knew about his … situation, but one look at Touka’s face told him that he shouldn’t mention it. Uta continued asking about Kaneki’s very dull love life, even going so far as to ask him about Touka, who had gotten bored watching Uta measure and Kaneki stutter and had moved over to the masks on display and was looking at them instead. 

“She’s apparently very cute,” Uta said, “I hear a lot while I’m making masks, no one expects me to be really listening. I’m too old to even think of Touka as anything other than a client and a good agent, so I haven't actually checked, but you’re about her age, aren’t you?”

“I-I haven’t really known her long enough to make that judgment…” Kaneki said, bringing his hand up to his chin. “You probably know her better than I do.” Uta paused a bit before answering,

“I know what I think of her, I’m asking what _you_ think.” Sneaking a quick glance over at Touka, who was apparently engrossed in a silver bird-looking mask, Kaneki sighed.

“She’s a little scary,” He said cautiously.

“Scary?” Uta laughed gently, “I can see where you get that. That’s why she’s a good agent. You don’t think she’s brave?”

“In all fairness, Mr. Uta, I only met Touka like an hour ago.” Uta finished measuring and leaned back on the counter, pulling up another sheet and beginning to sketch quietly.

“I guess.” He said, looking up from his paper. “Since you don’t know, I’m going to tell you that she _is_ brave. Did you know that she goes to school?” When Kaneki shook his head, he continued. “She juggles this job practically all night, school practically all day, and still has enough time to help the Manager out and teach you the ropes. You should probably thank her when you get the chance.” 

“Is school … dangerous?” Kaneki asked.

“Yes,” Uta replied, meeting Kaneki’s gaze. “Any interactions that ghouls have with humans is a double edged sword. We always have to be careful. But you know, back when HySy was above ground and anyone could walk in, I used to get so excited when I had human customers.” He patted his chest gently, “My heart would always skip a beat. I don’t know what it was, but something about them was so incredible.” 

Uta’s confession startled Kaneki. Ghouls actually liking humans? And not just for food? The idea seemed so incredibly foreign, but then again, he hadn’t expected to wake up in some sort of underground mafia hospital. Maybe there was a little more to this than he had thought. Eventually, Uta told him and Touka that he was finished and that they could leave (though he mentioned they were free to stay as long as they wanted). Touka cited having a lot of work, and pulled Kaneki out.

“What did you think of Uta?” Hinami asked when they walked back into the hall.  
“I’m not really sure,” Kaneki said with a smile, raising his hand to his chin.


End file.
